THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 
OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY 


THE  NUMERICAL 

STRENGTH  OF -THE 

CONFEDERATE  ARMY 

AN  EXAMINATION  OF  THE  ARGUMENT 

OF  THE  HON.  CHARLES  FRANCIS 

ADAMS  AND  OTHERS 

BY 
RANDOLPH  H.  McKIM,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  D.C.L. 

Late  1st  Lieut,  and  A.  D.  C.  3d  Brigade  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia.     Author  of  (t  A  Soldier's  Recollections.  " 

Exigui  numero  sed  hello  <vifvida  virtus —  Virgil 

It  will  be  difficult  to  get  the  world  to  understand 
the  odds  against  which  we  fought. 

— GENERAL  ROBERT  E.  LEE 


NEW  YORK 

THE  NEALE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
1912 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
THE  NEALE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


PREFACE 

The  distinguished  soldier  and  critic  whose 
name  appears  on  the  title  page  argues,  as  do 
various  other  Northern  critics,  that  the  usual 
Southern  estimate  of  the  strength  of  the  Confed 
erate  army  is  too  small  by  half.  This  conclusion 
is  supported,  they  contend,  both  by  the  census  of 
1860,  according  to  which  there  were  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  war  between  the  States  nearly 
a  million  men  in  the  Southern  States  of  military 
age,  and  by  the  number  of  regiments  of  the  sev 
eral  armies,  as  shown  by  the  muster  rolls  of  the 
Confederate  army,  captured  on  Lee's  retreat  from 
Richmond,  and  now  stored  among  the  archives 
in  Washington.  This  second  line  of  argument 
has  been  developed,  among  others,  by  two  well- 
known  military  critics,  Colonel  Wm.  F.  Fox,  in 
his  monumental  work  entitled  ''Regimental  Losses 
in  the  Civil  War"  (who  concludes  that  the 
Southern  Armies  contained  the  equivalent  of  764 
regiments,  of  ten  companies  each),  and  by 
Thomas  L.  Livermore,  Colonel  of  the  iSth  New 
Hampshire  Volunteers,  in  his  laborious  and  pains 
taking  monograph,  "  Numbers  and  Losses  in  the 
Civil  War  in  America,"  published  in  1901. 


253790 


PREFACE 

Both  these  authors  have  had  the  advantage  of 
studying  the  Muster  Rolls  of  the  Confederate 
army  just  alluded  to,  but  General  Marcus  J. 
Wright,  of  the  Adjutant  General's  Office,  War 
Department,  Washington,  writes  me  that  he 
knows  of  no  Southern  man  who  has  ever  exam 
ined  these  Rolls,  although  General  T.  W.  Castle- 
man  of  Louisiana  has  recently  received  permis 
sion  to  copy  the  Louisiana  Rolls.  Colonel  Wal 
ter  H.  Taylor,  of  General  Lee's  staff  was  also  per 
mitted  to  examine  some  of  the  official  returns  of 
Lee's  Army. 

Although  the  author  of  the  following  pages 
has  not  had  the  opportunity  of  studying  those 
precious  Muster  Rolls,  he  hopes  that  he  has  been 
able  to  show  that  the  thesis  maintained  by  the 
distinguished  critics  just  mentioned  rests  on  no 
sufficient  foundation  and  ought  to  be  rejected  by 
careful  thinkers. 

The  main  points  of  my  counter  argument  are 
these :  i.  The  lack  of  arms  limiting  the  enrolment 
of  soldiers  the  first  year  of  the  war.  2.  The  loss 
of  one- fourth  of  our  territory  by  the  end  of  the 
first  year.  3.  The  loss  of  control  of  the  trans- 
Mississippi  in  1863-4.  4.  The  enormous  number 
exempted  from  enrolment  for  every  sort  of  State 
duty,  and  for  railroads  and  new  manufacturing 
establishments  made  necessary  by  the  blockade 


PREFACE 

of  our  ports.  5.  The  opposition  of  some  of  the 
State  governments  to  the  execution  of  the  Con 
script  law.  6.  The  comparative  failure  of  the 
Conscript  law.  7.  The  disloyalty  of  a  part  of  our 
population.  8.  The  necessity  of  creating  not  only 
an  army  of  fighters,  but  also  an  industrial  army, 
and  an  army  of  civil  servants  out  of  the  male 
population  liable  for  military  duty. 

The  character  of  the  evidence  available  pre 
cludes  a  precise  estimate  of  the  actual  strength  of 
the  Confederate  army.  As  Colonel  Walter  H. 
Taylor,  Lee's  Adjutant  General,  says  in  a  letter 
addressed  to  the  author,  "  I  regret  to  have  to  say 
that  I  know  of  no  reliable  data  in  support  of  any 
precise  number,  and  have  always  realized  that  it 
must  ever  be  largely  a  matter  of  conjecture  on 
our  side." 

R.  H.  McK. 


THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH  OF  THE 
CONFEDERATE  ARMY 

Charles  Francis  Adams  holds  a  warm  place 
in  the  hearts  of  the  survivors  of  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia,  and,  indeed,  of  all  the  Confed 
erate  Armies,  not  only  because  of  his  splendid  tri 
bute  to  General  Robert  E.  Lee  and  to  the  army  he 
commanded,  but  also  because  of  his  generous  rec 
ognition  of  the  high  motives  of  the  Southern 
people  in  the  course  they  pursued  in  1861. 

It  is  therefore  in  the  friendliest  spirit  that  I 
undertake  to  question  the  accuracy  of  his  conclu 
sion  as  to  the  numerical  strength  of  the  Southern 
forces  engaged  during  the  four  years  of  the  War 
between  the  States.  In  his  recent  volume, 
"  Studies  Military  and  Diplomatic,"  p.  286,  he 
states  "  that  the  actual  enrollment  of  the  Confed 
erate  Army  during  the  entire  four  years  of  the 
conflict  exceeded  1,100,000,  rather  than  fell  short 
of  that  number." 

General  Adams  is  of  the  opinion  that  it  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Confederate 
States  were  crushed  by  overwhelming  resources 
and  numbers.  He  calls  attention  to  the  state 
ment  usually  given  by  Southern  writers,  that 

9 


io  "    THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

the  South  had  on  her  muster  rolls,  from  first  to 
last,  about  600,000  men,  and  refers  to  this  as 
a  "  legend  "  (p.  287),  "  opposed  to  all  reasonable 
assumption  and  unsupported  by  documentary  evi 
dence  ";  "  based  on  assertion  only"  (p.  286). 

His  argument  is  chiefly  a  priori,  and  proceeds 
substantially  thus:  The  census  of  1860  shows 
there  were  upward  of  5,000,000  white  people  in 
the  States  which  subsequently  seceded.  This  rep 
resents  an  arms-bearing  population  of  1,000,000 
men  between  eighteen  and  forty-five  years  of  age. 
To  this  he  adds  thirty  per  cent,  for  those  males 
between  sixteen  and  eighteen  years,  and  be 
tween  forty-five  and  sixty  years  of  age  — 
added  by  law,  so  he  states,  to  the  military  popu 
lation  — making  300,000  more.*  Now,  further 
add  twelve  per  cent. —  or  150,000  —  for  youths 
reaching,  between  May,  1861,  and  May,  1865,  the 
age  of  sixteen  years,  and  we  have  a  total  aggregate 
Confederate  arms-bearing  population  of  1,450,- 
ooo.  f  From  this  total  General  Adams  deducts 
twenty  per  cent,  for  exempts  of  all  classes. 

*  Gen.  Adams  says :  "  Computations  based  on  the  census 
returns  tend  to  show  that  at  the  very  lowest  estimate  the 
increase  of  time  of  military  service  would  represent  an  in 
crease  of  at  least  30  per  cent,  in  effectives."  Id.  p.  284. 

t  Our  critic  has  made  an  error  here :  12  per  cent,  of 
1,000,000,  i.e.,  120,000,  so  that  his  aggregate  should  be  i,- 
420,000. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       n 

"  There  were  then  remaining  a  minimum  of 
i,  160,000  effectives,  to  which  we  must  add  men 
from  the  Border  States  117,000;  giving  a  total 
Confederate  strength  of  1,277,000."  He  says 
also:  "  The  whole  male  arms-bearing  population 
was  thus  put  in  arms." 

Now  I  wish  on  the  very  threshold  to  acknowl 
edge  freely  that  this  conclusion  is  not,  in  the  opin 
ion  of  General  Adams,  discreditable  to  the  South, 
but  the  reverse.  He  holds  that  the  Southern  esti 
mate  of  a  total  strength  of  only  600,000  with  the 
Confederate  colors,  is  discreditable  to  the  spirit 
and  the  patriotism  of  our  people.  In  his  opinion 
a  just  appreciation  of  the  virtue  and  self-sacrifice 
exhibited  by  the  men  of  the  South  should  lead 
us  to  accept  the  much  higher  estimate  which  he 
gives,  not  reluctantly,  but  freely  and  cheerfully. 
He  thinks  that  we  who  contest  it  place  the  South 
ern  people  on  a  lower  level  of  devotion  than  the 
Boers  of  South  Africa. 

THE  COMPARISON   BETWEEN   THE  BOERS  AND  THE 
CONFEDERATES 

He  says,  at  p.  239  of  his  "  Military  Studies  "  : 
"  How  was  it  under  very  similar  circumstances 
with  the  South  Africans?  On  Confederate 
showing,  they  are  a  braver,  a  more  patriotic, 


12       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

and  self-sacrificing  race !  "  He  goes  on  to  show 
that  the  Boers  had  in  actual  service  more  than 
i  in  4  of  their  population ;  while,  if  it  be  true  that 
there  were  only  600,000  Southern  soldiers  in  the 
Confederacy,  there  was  only  i  out  of  12  at  the 
front.  This,  he  thinks,  would  be  discreditable 
to  Confederate  manhood;  he  cannot  believe  that 
the  Southerners  of  that  period  were  a  race  of  such 
"  mean-spirited,  stay-at-home  skulkers." 

In  answer  to  this  I  shall  undertake  to  show 
in  the  following  pages  that  Mr.  Adams'  figures  are 
very  wide  of  the  mark,  so  that  the  proportion  of 
fighting  men  in  the  Confederate  army  was  enor 
mously  greater  than  he  admits  in  this  passage, 
not  less  than  i  in  6  of  the  population.  But 
the  fact  is  that  the  conditions  in  the  cases  of 
the  Boers  and  the  Confederates  were  about  as 
dissimilar  as  they  well  could  be.  In  the  one  case 
there  was  a  small,  compact  population,  for  the 
most  part  half  civilized,  and  occupying  a  territory 
less  than  a  quarter  of  that  included  in  the  Con 
federacy.  They  had  no  highly  differentiated  civ 
ilization  to  support.  In  the  Confederacy  there 
were  eleven  States,  each  of  which  was  organized 
as  a  distinct  government  and  each  of  which  re 
quired  a  large  number  of  men  to  fill  its  offices  and 
to  maintain  its  civilization.  Large  numbers  of 
men  were  also  needed,  as  I  shall  show,  for 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       13 

purposes  of  manufacture,  and  to  supply  the 
army  with  food  and  munitions  of  war.  To 
compare  a  small  community  of  323,000  (Boers) 
with  a  nation  of  5,000,000  whites,  besides  3,000,- 
ooo  blacks ;  a  perfectly  homogeneous  people  with 
one  containing  divers  elements;  a  semi-civilized 
people  with  one  whose  civilization  was  highly 
differentiated ;  a  people  accustomed  to  live  on  the 
veldt  in  the  saddle,  with  one  dwelling  largely  in 
towns  and  cities  and  engaged  in  diversified  occu 
pations  —  is  to  make  a  comparison  illusory  in  a 
high  degree. 

In  confirmation  of  the  preceding  statement,  I 
add  the  following  passage  from  a  letter  addressed 
to  me  by  my  friend,  Colonel  Archer  Anderson, 
of  Richmond,  Va. : 

"  My  argument  was  that  the  comparison  of  the 
Confederates  with  the  Boers  was  not  fair,  the 
Boers  being  at  a  primitive  stage  of  civilization  - 
a  pastoral  and  agricultural  people  with  no  arts,  no 
culture,  and  no  wants  beyond  a  bare  subsistence. 
Such  a  people  can  call  out  a  large  proportion  of 
its  population,  and  in  their  case  there  was  the  par 
ticular  advantage  that  through  their  relations  to 
the  great  mining  region  operated  by  foreigners, 
they  had  accumulated  a  vast  treasure  and  a  great 
stock  of  European  munitions  of  war,  and  for  a 
long  period  were  able  to  draw  what  they  further 


14       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

needed  from  Europe  through  their  railway  com 
munication  with  the  Portuguese  port  on  Delagoa 
Bay.  You  have  shown  that  the  Confederates  on 
the  other  hand  were  highly  civilized,  with  na 
tional,  State,  and  municipal  institutions  to  main 
tain,  and,  being  cut  off  from  supplies  from  the 
outside  world,  obliged  to  extemporize  varied 
manufactures  of  powder,  cannon,  small  arms, 
clothing,  shoes,  hats,  and  every  sort  of  material 
needed  by  their  railway  systems  and  their  people 
at  home  as  well  as  the  armies  in  the  field.  The 
maintenance  of  civil  government,  and  such  a  task 
of  production  over  and  above  the  yield  of  agricul 
ture,  required  the  abstraction  of  a  vast  number  of 
men  from  military  service." 

It  is  instructive,  in  considering  this  argument 
to  recall  what  a  great  historian  tells  us  of  the 
Helvetii,  in  their  contest  with  Caesar.  He  says, 

"  The  whole  population  of  the  assembled  tribes 
amounted  to  368,000  souls,  including  women  and 
children :  the  number  that  bore  arms  was  92,000." 
(Merivale,  History  of  the  Romans,  vol.  I,  pp. 

242-3-) 

Here  is  a  real  historical  parallel  between  two 
peoples  at  a  not  dissimilar  stage  of  civilization. 
Their  numbers  were  very  nearly  the  same :  in  one 
case  323,000,  in  the  other  368,000;  and  their 
fighting  strength  was  about  in  the  same  proper- 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       15 

tion, — -  one  in  four  of  the  population ;  89,000  in 
one  case,  92,000  in  the  other. 

It  may  be  added  that  if  Mr.  Adams  is  right  in 
estimating  the  Southern  armies  at  nearly  1,300,- 
ooo  men,  then  we  face  the  remarkable  fact  that 
a  white  population  of  a  little  more  than  5,000,000 
people  sent  to  the  front  almost  as  many  men  as  a 
population  of  over  22,000,000.  For  Colonel 
Livermore  tells  us  there  were  2,234,000  individ 
uals  in  the  United  States  army;  but  of  these, 
186,017  were  negroes,  494,000  foreigners,  and 
86,000  from  the  Southern  states;  so  that  the 
North  only  sent  into  the  field  1,467,083. 

Judged  then  by  the  numerical  standard,  the 
patriotism  and  devotion  of  the  Southern  people, 
according  to  this  showing,  was  to  that  of  the 
North  as  four  to  one.  And  this  takes  no  ac 
count  of  the  many  thousands  who  served  the 
South  as  mechanics,  laborers,  etc. 

It     seems     to     be     overlooked     by     General 

FUNDAMENTAL     ERROR     IN     THE     ARGUMENT     OF 
NORTHERN    WRITERS 

Adams,  Colonel  Livermore,  and  other  per 
sons,  in  their  estimates  of  the  population 
available  for  military  purposes,  that  the  Con 
federate  States'  Government  had  not  only 


1 6       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

to  organize  an  army,  but  also  to  establish  exten 
sive  manufacturing  plants  for  the  equipment  of 
the  army;  for  clothing,  for  harness,  for  saddles, 
for  guns,  powder,  and  ordnance;  even  for  min 
ing  the  ore  which  had  to  be  worked  up  into  iron 
for  the  Tredegar  works  and  other  similar  plants 
within  the  limits  of  the  Confederacy. 

Again,  a  large  contingent  of  men  had  to  be  re 
tained  as  railway  servants  and  government  clerks, 
and  for  purposes  of  agriculture,  for  it  must  be 
remembered  that  not  one  in  ten  of  the  soldiers  in 
the  Confederate  army  was  an  owner  of  slaves, 
and  therefore  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  agri 
culture  of  the  country  had  to  be  carried  on  by 
white  men.  It  is  also  overlooked  that  the  com 
plicated  machinery  of  civilized  government  had  to 
be  maintained  in  eleven  States  with  the  necessary 
officers  and  clerks  pertaining  to  their  administra 
tion.  (This  is  one  of  the  particulars  in  which 
the  case  of  the  Boer  Republic  differs  so  radically 
from  that  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  that  the 
comparison  between  the  two  is  quite  illusory.) 
If,  as  General  Adams  insists,  "  the  whole  male 
arms-bearing  was  thus  put  in  arms,"  one  can 
not  but  wonder  who  did  all  these  things  just 
enumerated  ? 

When  these  things  are  taken  into  considera 
tion,  and  the  figures  I  shall  present  are  care- 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       17 

fully  examined,  it  will  be  seen  that  to  have  put 
600,000  men  into  the  armies  of  the  South  —  men 
serving  with  the  colors  —  instead  of  being  dis 
creditable  to  the  patriotism  of  the  Southern 
people  was  in  reality  a  great  achievement. 

One  of  the  most  accomplished  English  military 
critics  of  our  time,  Colonel  G.  F.  R.  Henderson, 
author  of  the  Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson,  writes 
on  this  aspect  of  the  subject  as  follows : 

"  Not  only  had  the  South  to  provide  from  her 
seven  millions  of  white  population  an  army  larger 
than  that  of  Imperial  France,  but  from  a  nation 
of  agriculturists  she  had  to  provide  another  army 
of  craftsmen  and  mechanics  to  enable  the  soldiers 
to  keep  the  field.  For  guns  and  gun  carriages, 
powder  and  ammunition,  clothing  and  harness, 
gunboats  and  torpedoes,  locomotives  and  railway 
plant,  she  was  now  dependent  on  the  hands  of  her 
own  people  and  the  resources  of  her  own  soil. 
The  organization  of  these  resources  scattered  over 
a  vast  extent  of  territory,  was  not  to  be  accom 
plished  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  nor  was 
the  supply  of  skilled  labor  sufficient  to  fill  the 
ranks  of  her  industrial  army."  (Life  of  Stone 
wall  Jackson,  II,  253.) 

Upon  this  striking  passage  one  or  two  remarks 
may  be  appropriate.  The  distinguished  critic 
tells  us  most  truly  that  the  South,  by  reason  of 


iS       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

her  isolated  situation,  had  to  provide  two  armies, 
—  an  army  of  fighters  and  an  army  of  workers. 
He  might  have  said  she  had  to  provide  three 
armies ;  for  besides  the  industrial  army  and  the 
army  of  soldiers,  she  had  to  provide  an  army  of 
civil  servants  to  man  the  offices  necessary  to 
carry  on  not  only  the  Confederate  States  govern 
ment,  but  also  the  government  of  eleven  separate 
States,  with  their  highly  differentiated  organiza 
tions. 

Our  author  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  fighting  army  of  the  South  was  larger 
than  that  of  Imperial  France.  Let  me  add 
that,  even  if  the  Southern  army  numbered 
no  more  than  650,000'  men,  it  was  nearly 
double  the  army  of  Imperial  Rome  in  the  reign 
of  Augustus.  Radiating  from  the  golden  mile 
stone  in  the  forum  to  every  point  of  the  compass, 
that  vast  empire  extended  from  the  Pillars  of 
Hercules  to  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  and  from 
the  coasts  of  Britain  to  the  borders  of  the  great 
African  desert.  It  comprehended  among  its  sub 
jects  at  least  an  hundred  divers  races,  numbering 
about  85,000,000  people;  and  yet  the  historian 
tells  us  that  the  entire  armies  of  the  empire,  ex 
clusive  of  some  battalions  maintained  in  Rome 

*  See  Merivale's  History  of  the  Romans,  III,  416,  and 
IV,  298  and  343,  and  V.  386. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       19 

itself,  did  not  exceed  340,000  men,*  there  being 
at  the  time  among  the  citizens,  exclusive  of  the 
subjects,  5,984,072  males  of  military  age. 

I  have  quoted  Colonel  Henderson's  admiring 
comment  on  the  size  of  the  army  the  South  was 
able  to  put  in  the  field.  In  doing  so  I  have  not 
forgotten  that  he  estimates  that  army  at  900,000. 
But  his  judgment  upon  that  point  loses  much  of 
its  weight  when  we  observe  that  in  two  distinct 
passages  in  his  Life  of  Stonewall  Jackson  he  gives 
seven  millions  as  the  white  population  of  the 
South,  instead  of  five  millions,  as  it  actually  was. 
This  error  may  serve  to  show  how  easy  it  is  for 
a  foreign  critic  to  be  mistaken  upon  a  question  of 
statistics.  Apart  from  the  influence  upon  his 
judgment  of  his  error  as  to  the  size  of  the  white 
population,  it  is  evident,  from  the  passage  quoted 
above,  that  Henderson  included  in  the  estimate  of 
900,000  many  thousands  of  men  detailed  for  the 
various  industries  he  enumerates.* 

I  submit  then  that  these  preliminary  considera 
tions  quite  do  away  with  the  presumption  that  an 
army  of  only  six  hundred  thousand  men  serving 
with  the  colors,  would  have  been  unworthy  of 
the  devotion  or  the  patriotism  of  the  Southern 

*  In  the  first  edition  of  Col.  Henderson's  work,  cited 
above,  he  actually  stated  that  the  element  of  foreigners  in 
the  Southern  armies  was  almost  as  large  as  in  the  Northern 
armies ! 


20       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

people,  or  inadequate  to  what  might  have  been 
expected  of  a  nation  of  five  millions  of  whites. 

In  other  words,  we  enter  upon  our  argument 
without  any  reasonable  presumption  against  the 
conclusion  which  it  is  our  purpose  to*  defend. 
Whoever  will  fairly  consider  that  the  South  had 
to  provide  out  of  her  indigenous  male  population 
of  military  age,  a  fighting  army,  an  industrial 
army,  and  an  army  of  civil  servants,  will  not  be 
surprised  if  it  shall  appear  from  the  evidence 
available  that  she  was  not  able  to  muster  in  battle 
array  more  than  six  hundred  thousand  men. 

AFFIRMATIVE  EVIDENCE  IN  SUPPORT  OF  OUR  CON 
CLUSION 

We  arrive  at  the  result  indicated  above  by  sev 
eral  independent  lines  of  evidence. 

I. —  Our  figures  are  supported  by  the  state 
ments  of  a  number  of  men  who  were  in  position 
to  know  what  was  the  total  effective  strength  of 
the  Southern  armies.  Among  them  were  General 
Cooper,  adjutant-general  of  the  Confederate 
armies,  writing  in  1869  (see  "  Southern  Histori 
cal  Society  Papers,"  Vol.  vii,  p.  287)  ;  Dr.  A.  T. 
Bledsoe,,  Assistant  Secretary  of  War;  General 
John  Preston,  chief  of  the  Conscription  Bureau; 
Vice-President  Alexander  H.  Stephens  ("  War 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      21 

Between  the  States,"  1870,  Vol.  ii,  p.  630)  ;  Gen 
eral  Jubal  A.  Early  ("  Southern  Historical  Pa 
pers,"  Vol.  ii,  p.  20)  ;  Dr.  Joseph  Jones  (official 
report,  June,  1890,  "  Southern  Historical  Society 
Papers,"  xix,  14),  and  General  Marcus  J.  Wright 
—  who  now,  however,  puts  the  numbers  at  700,- 
ooo  ("  Southern  Historical  Society  Papers,"  xix, 
254).  I  ask  what  better  authorities  on  this  sub 
ject  could  be  named  than  the  adjutant-general  of 
the  army,  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  and  the 
chief  of  the  Conscription  Bureau  of  the  Confed 
erate  States? 

In  August,  1869,  Dr.  Joseph  Jones  sent  to 
General  Cooper  a  carefully  prepared  paper  on  this 
subject,  asking  his  opinion  as  to  the  accuracy  of 
the  data  contained  therein.  General  Cooper  replied 
that  after  having  "  closely  examined  "  the  paper 
he  had  "  come  to  the  conclusion,  from  his  general 
recollection,"  that  "  it  must  be  regarded  as  nearly 
critically  correct."  Is  it  credible  that  the  ad 
jutant-general  of  the  army  should  have  given  as 
his  opinion  that  this  number  —  600,000, —  was 
"  nearly  critically  correct,"  if  in  fact  there  had 
been  upon  the  rolls  of  the  Confederate  armies 
twice  that  number, —  1,277,000  men, —  as  Gen 
eral  Adams  would  have  us  believe? 

II. — By  adding  together  the  Confederate 
prisoners  in  the  hands  of  the  United  States  at  the 


22       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

close  of  the  war,  98,000 ;  *  the  soldiers  who  sur 
rendered  in  1865,  174,223  ;  those  who  were  killed 
or  died  of  wounds,  74,508 ;  died  in  prison,  26,439  » 
died  of  disease,  59,277;  died  from  other  causes, 
40,000;  discharged,  57,411;  deserters,  83,372; 
we  get  a  total  of  613,230. 

These  figures  as  to  the  killed  and  died  of 
wounds,  and  of  disease,  are  taken  from  Fox's 
monumental  work  on  regimental  losses.  He 
"  conjectures  "  that  nearly  20,000  must  be  added 
to  the  74,508  given  above,  making  94,000;  but 
gives  no  grounds  for  this. 

III. — Again  the  official  report  of  General  S. 
Cooper,  Adjutant  General,  dated  March  i,  1862 
(127  W.  R.  963),  states  the  aggregate  of  the 
Confederate  armies,  including  armed  and  organ 
ized  militia,  officers  and  men,  as .340,250 

General  Preston,  Superintendent  of  Con 
scription,  C.  S.  A.,  reports  from  Feb 
ruary,  1862,  to  February,  1865  (W.  R., 
series  iv,  Vol.  iii,  p.  noi)  : 
Conscriptions  (exclusive  of  Arkansas  and 

Texas) 81,993 

Enlistments  east  of  the  Mississippi  River.    76,206 

498,449 

*  Gen.  Marcus  J.  Wright  puts  this  number  at  only  65,387. 
But  cf.  Mansfield's  Life  of  Grant,  p.  33& 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      23 

Estimated   conscriptions   and  enlistments 

west  of  the  river  and  elsewhere 120,000 


Total 618,449 

IV. — >  Now  compare  with  these  reports  the  fol 
lowing  statement  from  the  New  York  Tribune  of 
June  26,  1867: 

"  Among  the  documents  which  fell  into  our 
hands  at  the  downfall  of  the  Confederacy  are  the 
returns,  very  nearly  complete,  of  the  Confederate 
armies  from  their  organization  in  the  summer  of 
1861  down  to  the  spring  of  1865.  These  returns 
have  been  carefully  analyzed,  and  I  am  enabled  to 
furnish  the  returns  in  every  department  and  for 
almost  every  month  from  these  official  sources. 
We  judge  in  all  600,000  different  men  were  in  the 
Confederate  ranks  during  the  war." 

This  was  accompanied  by  a  detailed  tabular 
statement. 

Is  not  this  good  secondary  evidence  as  to  the 
numbers  of  men  in  the  Confederate  Army, 
especially  when  we  remember  the  statement  of 
General  Cooper,  late  adjutant-general  of  the  Con 
federate  armies?  He  says: 

"  The  files  of  this  office  which  could  best  afford 
this  information  [as  to  numbers]  were  carefully 
boxed  up  and  taken  on  our  retreat  from  Rich- 


24       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

mond  to  Charlotte,  North  Carolina,  where  they 
were,  unfortunately,  captured  and,  as  I  learn,  are 
now  in  Washington."  These  files,  be  it  remem 
bered,  have  never  been  examined  by  any  South 
ern  writer. 

Observe  also  that  the  "  American  Encyclo 
paedia  "  (1875),  of  which  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana, 
late  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  U.  S.,  was  ed 
itor,  quotes  General  Cooper's  statement  as  to  num 
bers,  without  comment,  thus  tacitly  admitting  the 
truth  of  that  statement.  Can  it  be  justly  said,  in 
the  light  of  these  facts,  that  the  estimate  usually 
given  by  Southern  writers  is  based  on  assertion 
only  ?  * 

V. —  There  is  a  fifth  line  upon  which  we  are 
led  to  a  very  similar  conclusion. 

In  the  work  of  Lieutenant  Colonel  Wm.  F. 
Fox,  "  Regimental  Losses  in  the  Civil  War,"  we 
find  the  strength  of  the  Confederate  armies  fur 
nished  by  the  seceded  States  and  by  the  border 
States  as  well,  reckoned  as  follows :  529  regiments 
and  85  battalions  of  infantry;  127  regiments  and 
47  battalions  of  cavalry;  8  regiments  and  I  bat 
talion  of  partisan  rangers;  5  regiments  and  6  bat- 

*  See  a  valuable  discussion  of  our  subject  in  a  pamphlet 
entitled  "  Acts  of  the  Republican  Party,"  by  Cazenove  G. 
Lee,  who  wrote  under  the  nom  de  plume  of  "  C.  Gardner," 
Winchester,  Va.,  1906,  pp.  59-69. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      25 

talions  of  heavy  artillery,  and  261  batteries  of 
light  artillery  —  in  all  equivalent  to  764  regiments 
of  10  companies.  In  making  this  statement 
Colonel  Fox  assures  his  readers  that  "  no  statis 
tics  are  given  that  are  not  warranted  by  the  of 
ficial  records." 

As  to  the  size  of  the  regiments  we  got  some 
light  from  the  following  reports :  The  Confed 
erate  adjutant-general  reports  in  March,  1862, 
an  average  strength  of  823  men  in  369  regiments 
and  89  battalions  (127  W.  R.  963).  Beaure- 
gard's  Corps  (32  regiments)  is  reported  Aug.  31, 
1 86 1,  as  numbering  1037  men  to  the  regiment 
(5  W.  R.  824).  Longstreet's  Virginia  troops, 
June  23,  1862,  averaged  754  men  to  the  regi 
ment.  (14  W.  R.  614,  615.)  But  more  impor 
tant  is  the  legislation  of  the  Congress.  The  Con 
federate  Act  of  March  6,  1861,  prescribed  for 
infantry  companies  the  ndrnber  of  104,  and  for 
cavalry  72,  which  gives,  for  an  infantry  regiment 
( 10  companies)  1040  men,  and  for  a  cavalry  regi 
ment  720  men  —  provided  the  ranks  were  full, 
which  was  by  no  means  the  rule  but  rather  the  ex 
ception.  Observe  now  that  in  November,  1861, 
the  War  Department  prescribed  that  no  infantry 
company  should  be  accepted  with  less  than  64 
men  and  no  cavalry  company  with  less  than  60 
and  no  artillery  company  with  less  than  70.  On 


26       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

this    basis    infantry    regiments    might    number 
only  640  men  and  cavalry  regiments  only  600. 

This  marked  change  in  the  standard  of  the  size 
of  companies  and  regiments  prescribed  by  the 
War  Department  in  November,  1861,  as  com 
pared  with  the  Act  of  March,  1861,  lowering  the 
requisite  number  of  men  in  an  infantry  regiment 
from  1040  to  640,  and  in  a  cavalry  regiment  from 
720  to  600,  is  suggestive  of  the  fact  that  it  was 
not  found  easy  to  raise  regiments  of  the  size 
originally  prescribed. 

Now  in  calculating  the  strength  of  the  Confed 
erate  army  from  the  number  of  regiments,  we 
shall  probably  approximate  closely  a  correct  re 
sult  by  taking  the  mean  between  the  larger  and 
smaller  number  just  referred  to.  But  the  mean 
between  1040  and  640  is  840,  and  that  between 
720  and  600  is  660. 

Applying  this  standard  to  Colonel  Fox's  state 
ment  of  the  troops  in  the  entire  Confederate 
army,  we  get  the  following  result : 

Men 
529  regiments  of  infantry,  840  each  .  .  .444,360 

85  battalions  infantry,  400  each 34,000 

127  regiments  cavalry,  600  each 76,200 

47  battalions  cavalry,  400  each 18,800 

261  batteries  light  artillery,  70  each.  .  .  .    16,270 

5  regiments  heavy  artillery,  800  each . .     4,000 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      27 

6  battalions  heavy  artillery,  400  each .  .  2,400 
8  regiments  partisan  rangers,  700  each  5,600 
i  battalion  partisan  rangers 350 


601,980 

The  size  of  infantry  and  cavalry  battalions  and 
of  regiments  and  battalions  of  heavy  artillery  in 
this  calculation,  as  well  as  of  the  regiments  of 
partisan  rangers,  is  in  each  case  suggested  by  that 
accomplished  and  experienced  officer,  Colonel 
Walter  H.  Taylor,  adjutant-general  on  the  staff  of 
General  Robert  E.  Lee.  His  figures  may  be 
rather  high  —  certainly  they  are  not  too  low.  Of 
course  such  a  calculation  is  necessarily  only  ap 
proximate,  but  the  basis  on  which  it  is  made  ap 
pears  reasonably  reliable.  To  one  who,  like  my 
self,  had  personal  observation  of  the  armies  in 
Virginia  from  the  first  battle  of  Manassas  to  Ap- 
pomattox,  the  standard  of  strength  in  regiments 
and  battalions  in  the  field  above  adopted,  seems  in 
conformity  with  the  facts. 

THE    ARGUMENT    OF    GENERAL    ADAMS 

Turn  we  now  to  examine  the  estimate  made  by 
General  Adams  and  quoted  at  the  beginning  of 
this  paper. 

But  first  let  me  say  that  I  quite  agree  with  him 
when  he  says  that  if  the  South  had  as  many  as 


28       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

600,000  men  in  arms  she  ought  to  have  been  un 
conquerable,  and  probably  would  have  been  so, 
but  for  the  United  States  Navy. 

That  opinion  was  expressed  by  a  distinguished 
Southern  writer,  Dr.  Bledsoe,  Assistant  Secretary 
of  War,  in  an  article  written  about  forty  years 
ago.  He  said :  "  The  decisive  circumstance 
which  robbed  the  South  of  the  defensive  advan 
tage  of  its  wide  territory  was  the  superiority  of 
its  enemy  upon  the  wrater."  All  the  water  front 
of  the  Confederate  States  was  "  an  exposed 
frontier,"  both  ocean  coasts  and  navigable  rivers. 
The  best  authorities  in  the  South  have  maintained 
the  same  view  with  practically  unanimity;  hence, 
in  differing  from  Mr.  Adams  I  am  not  influenced 
by  a  desire  to  account  for  our  defeat  by  the  over 
whelming  force  of  numbers  opposed  to  us,  but 
by  the  desire  to  establish  the  truth  of  history. 

WEAK   POINTS   IN   GENERAL  ADAMS'  ARGUMENT 

Now  in  making  the  calculation  previously  al 
luded  to,  it  appears  to  me  that  our  gallant  and 
generous  friend  has  overlooked  some  important 
considerations  bearing  on  the  problem  discussed. 

i. — During  the  first  year  of  the  war  the  Con 
federate  Government  could  not  have  availed  itself 
of  even  half  a  million  of  men  for  its  armies,  in- 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       29 

asmuch  as  it  was  utterly  unable  to  arm  and 
equip  them.  The  supply  of  arms  and  of  artillery 
was  utterly  inadequate  for  even  half  that  num 
ber.*  As  the  war  progressed  the  muskets,  the 
sabers,  the  cannon,  used  in  the  Confederate  army, 
if  examined,  would  have  been  found  to  have  been 
in  larger  part  captured  on  the  field  of  battle. 
Pompey  the  Great  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  I 
have  only  to  stamp  with  my  foot  to  raise  legions 
from  the  soil  of  Italy."  Had  Jefferson  Davis  been 
able  by  a  stamp  of  his  foot  to  summon  a  million 
men  to  the  Confederate  colors  in  the  spring  of 
1 86 1,  what  advantage  would  it  have  been?  He 
could  not  have  armed  them,  even  if  he  could  have 
fed  and  clothed  and  transported  them.  As  Gen 
eral  Adams  himself  has  said :  "  The  strength  of 
an  army  is  measured  and  limited  not  by  the  census 
number  of  men  available,  but  by  the  means  at 
hand  of  arming,  equipping,  clothing,  feeding,  and 
transporting  those  men." 

2. —  General  Adams  appears  to  have  over 
looked  the  fact  that  by  May,  1862,  the  Northern 
armies  were  in  permanent  occupation  of  middle 

*  I  acted  as  adjutant  of  the  Third  Brigade  A.  N.  Va.,  in 
the  Gettysburg  campaign.  Even  then,  in  the  third  year  of 
the  war,  and  in  that  best  equipped  army,  the  returns 
showed  only  1480  muskets  to  1941  men  in  the  brigade. 
One-fourth  of  the  command  was  without  arms. 


30       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

and  west  Tennessee,  nearly  the  whole  of  Louisi 
ana,  part  of  Florida,  the  coasts  of  North  and 
South  Carolina,  southeastern  Virginia,  much  of 
northern  Virginia,  and  practically  the  whole  of 
that  part  of  Virginia  known  as  Western  Virginia. 
The  population  thus  excluded  from  the  support  of 
the  Confederacy  may  be  estimated  conservatively 
at  1,200,000,  leaving  3,800,000  to  bear  the  burden 
of  the  war.  Hence  the  estimate  of  the  arms-bear 
ing  population  in  1862,  when  the  real  tug  began, 
would  be  not  1,000,000,  but  760,000.  Of  this 
number,  one-fifth,  as  General  Adams  admits, 
would  be  regularly  exempt,  i.e.,  152,000;  and 
many  thousands  more  were  detailed  for  various 
branches  of  industry.  Doubtless  during  the  first 
year  thousands  entered  the  Confederate  army 
from  this  territory  —  a  fair  proportion  of  the 
340,000  on  the  muster  rolls  in  March,  1862;  but 
the  conscript  law  could  not  operate  —  never  did 
operate  —  in  this  fourth  of  the  Southern  territory. 
3. —  The  seceded  States  (including  West  Va.) 
furnished  the  Northern  armies,  according  to  the 
returns  of  the  War  Department,  86,000  men.  I 
do-  not  remember  any  mention  of  this  by  Mr. 
Adams,  though  he  alludes  to*  the  statement  that 
316,000  men  were  furnished  by  Southern  States 
to  the  Union  armies,  including  the  Border  States, 
which  did  not  secede.  (The  records  of  the  War 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       31 

Department  show  a  total  of  white  soldiers  from 
all  Southern  States,  including  Kentucky,  Mis 
souri,  Maryland,  West  Virginia,  Delaware  and 
District  of  Columbia,  of  295,481.) 

4. — It  must  be  remembered  that  while  the  una 
nimity  with  which  the  Southern  people  supported 
the  war  has  perhaps  never  been  surpassed  in  so 
large  a  revolution,  yet  there  was  a  large  element 
of  disloyalty,  especially  in  the  mountainous  re 
gions  of  the  South.  For  instance,  in  the  Valley 
of  Virginia  there  were  large  numbers  of  Quakers 
and  Dunkards,  all  opposed  to  war.  There  were 
also  in  that  region  the  numerous  descendants  of 
the  Hessian  prisoners,  who  were  not  in  sympathy 
with  us.  The  number  of  Union  men  in  the  South 
who  did  not  take  up  arms  has  been  estimated  at 
80,000. 

5. — It  must  also  be  remembered,  as  Dr.  Bledsoe 
said  in  his  article  in  the  Southern  Review,  that 
"  there  was  also  a  large  element  of  baser  metal, — 
men  who  begrudged  the  sacrifice  for  liberty  and 
shirked  danger." 

6. — General  Adams  says  that  the  Confederate 
States  passed  the  most  drastic  conscript  law  on 
record  —  which  may  be  true ;  but  he  is  mistaken 
in  supposing  that  this  law  was  successfully  ex 
ecuted.  Thus,  General  Cobb  writes,  December, 
1864,  from  Macon,  Georgia,  to  the  Secretary  of 


32       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

War :  "I  say  to  you  that  you  will  never  get  the 
men  into  the  service  who  ought  to  be  there, 
through  the  conscript  camp.  It  would  require 
the  whole  army  to  enforce  the  conscript  law  if  the 
same  state  of  things  exist  throughout  the  Confed 
eracy  which  I  know  to  be  the  case  in  Georgia  and 
Alabama,  and  I  may  add  Tennessee."  (W.  R., 
series  iv,  vol.  iii,  p.  964.) 

Again,  H.  W.  Walters,  writing  from  Oxford, 
Mississippi,  to  the  Department,  December,  1864, 
says :  "I  regard  the  conscript  department  in 
Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi  as  almost 
worthless."  Yet  again  General  T.  H.  Holmes  re 
ports  to  Adjutant-General  Cooper  as  to  North 
Carolina,  April  29,  1864:  "  After  a  full  and 
complete  conference  with  Colonel  Mallett,  com 
mandant  of  conscription,  .  .  .  I  am  pained 
to  report  that  there  is  much  disaffection  in  many 
of  the  counties,  which,  emboldened  by  the  ab 
sence  of  troops,  are  being  organized  in  some 
places  to  resist  enrolling  officers."  And  General 
Kemper  reports,  December  4,  1864,  that  in  his 
belief  there  were  40,000  men  in  Virginia  out  of 
the  army  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  forty- 
five.  (W.  R.,  series  iv,  vol.  iii,  p.  855.) 

In  support  of  his  thesis  that  the  whole  military 
population  was  enrolled  in  the  Confederate  armies 
Colonel  Livermore  quotes  a  letter  of  General  Lee, 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       33 

urging  the  necessity  of  "  getting  out  our  entire 
arms-bearing  population  in  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina."  But  this  letter,  written  October  4, 
1864,  six  months  before  the  surrender,  is  strong 
evidence  that  up  to  that  time  the  stringent  con 
script  laws  had  failed  to  get  out  even  in  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina,  "  the  entire  arms-bear 
ing  population."  (Livermore,  "  Numbers  and 
Losses,"  p.  17.) 

Colonel  Livermore  quotes  another  letter  of 
General  Lee,  dated  September  26,  1864,  in  con 
firmation  of  his  opinion  that  the  conscription  laws 
were  thoroughly  enforced,  in  which  General  Lee 
speaks  of  the  "  imperious  necessity  of  getting  all 
our  men  subject  to  military  duty  in  the  field,"  and 
adds,  "  I  get  no  additions."  (Id.  p.  17.)  Is  that 
statement  consistent  with  the  rigid  and  successful 
enforcement  of  the  conscript  law?  Is  it  not 
rather  the  most  conclusive  evidence  that  it  was 
not  successfully  enforced?  Or  is  my  Boeotian 
wit  so  dull  that  I  cannot  see  the  point?  If  so,  I 
pray  to  be  enlightened !  * 

"The  Government,  at  the  opening  of  1864,  estimated 
that  the  Conscription  would  place  four  hundred  thousand 
men  in  the  field."  Lee  did  not  share  this  belief.  By  the 
end  of  the  year  it  was,  in  his  opinion,  "diminishing,  rather 
than  increasing,  the  strength  of  his  army."  —  Letter  of 
Dec.  31,  1864.  See  "  R.  E.  Lee,  Man  and  Soldier,"  p.  591, 
by  Thos.  Nelson  Page. 


34       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

The  statement  is  often  made  that  the  Confed 
erate  Conscription  embraced  all  white  males  be 
tween  1 6  and  60  years  of  age.  This  is  an  error. 
The  first  Act,  April  16,  1862,  embraced  men  be 
tween  18  and  35  years;  the  second,  of  Sept.  27, 
1862,  men  between  18  and  45  years ;  the  third  and 
last,  of  February  17,  1864,  men  between  17  and 
50.  Both  General  Adams  and  Colonel  Livermore 
acknowledge  this.  Yet  the  latter  rests  his  argu 
ment  on  the  supposition  that  the  Conscription 
gathered  in  all  males  between  16  and  60  years. 

In  further  illustration  of  this  subject,  I  may 
point  out  that  one  of  the  difficulties  confronting 
the  conscript  officers  was  the  opposition  of  the 
governors  of  some  of  the  States,  notably  the  Gov 
ernor  of  Mississippi,  the  Governor  of  North  Car 
olina,  and  the  Governor  of  Georgia.  Thus  the 
doctrine  of  States'  Rights,  which  was  the  bedrock 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  became  a  barrier 
to  the  effectiveness  of  the  Confederate  govern 
ment  !  South  Carolina  passed  an  exemption  law 
which  nullified  to  a  certain  extent  the  conscript 
laws  of  the  Confederacy,  and  Governor  Vance  of 
North  Carolina  proposed  "  to  try  title  with  the 
Confederate  Government  in  resisting  the  claims 
of  the  conscript  officers  to  such  citizens  of  North 
Carolina  as  he  made  claim  to  for  the  proper  ad 
ministration  of  the  State." 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      35 

"  The  laws  of  North  Carolina,"  General  Pres 
ton  complains  (W.  R.,  iv,  iii,  p.  867),  "  have  cre 
ated  large  numbers  of  officers,  and  the  Governor 
of  that  State  has  not  only  claimed  exemption  for 
those  officers,  but  for  all  persons  employed  in 
any  form  by  the  State  of  North  Carolina,  such  as 
workers  in  factories,  salt-makers,  etc." 

"  This  bureau  has  no  power  to  enforce  the  Con 
federate  law  in  opposition  to  the  .  .  .  claims 
of  the  State." 

Governor  Brown  of  Georgia  forbade  the  en 
rollment  of  "  large  bodies  of  the  citizens  of 
Georgia."  The  number  is  supposed  to  have 
reached  eight  thousand  men  liable  to  Confederate 
service.  General  Preston  complains  in  like  strain 
of  the  action  of  the  Governor  of  Mississippi. 

EXEMPTS    AND   DETAILS 

There  is  an  important  report  by  General  Pres 
ton  in  February,  1865  (W.  R.,  iv,  iii,  pp.  1099- 
1011).  In  this  he  gives  the  number  of  exempts 
allowed  by  the  Conscript  Bureau  in  seven  States, 
and  parts  of  two  States,  east  of  the  Mississippi  as 
66,586. 

He  then  gives  the  agricultural  details,  details 
for  public  necessity,  and  for  government  service, 
contractors  and  artisans,  a  total  of  21,414  —  the 
whole  aggregating  87,990  men. 


36       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

In  another  report,  already  referred  to,  Novem 
ber,  1864,  he  gives  the  number  of  State  officers 
exempted  on  the  certificates  of  governors  in  nine 
States  as  18,843.  This,  with  the  preceding, 
makes  a  grand  total  of  106,833. 

These  are  exemptions  under  the  Confed 
erate  States'  law  in  seven  States,  and  in  parts  of 
two  States.  They  do  not  include  the  States  west 
of  the  Mississippi.  But  in  addition  to  these  there 
were  many  thousand  exemptions  under  purely 
State  laws.  We  have  no  complete  record  of  these 
last ;  but  in  the  State  of  Georgia  alone  we  have  a 
record  of  11,031  such  exemptions. 

7. — We  must  also  consider  the  large  numbers 
of  men  employed  on  the  railroads,  in  the  govern 
ment  departments,  in  State  offices,  and  in  the 
various  branches  of  manufacture  necessary  for 
the  support  of  the  army  and  of  the  people;  and 
in  directing  the  agricultural  labor  of  the  slaves. 
Factories  were  started  for  making  swords,  bay 
onets,  muskets,  percussion  caps,  powder,  cart 
ridges,  cartridge  boxes,  belts,  and  other  equip 
ment;  for  clothing,  for  caps  and  shoes,  for  har 
ness  and  saddles,  for  artillery-caissons  and  car 
riages;  for  guns,  cannon  and  powder. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  statement  of 
General  Kemper  that  in  December,  1864,  "  the  re 
turns  of  the  bureau,  obviously  imperfect  and  par- 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      37 

tial,  show  28,035  men  'm  tne  State  of  Virginia 
between  eighteen  and  forty-five,  exempt  and  de 
tailed  for  all  causes."  The  South  having  an  ag 
ricultural  population,  it  was  necessary,  as  just 
said,  when  war  came,  to  organize  manufactories 
of  every  kind  of  equipment  for  the  army. 

After  all,  the  most  important  question  to  de 
termine  is  the  number  of  men  actually  serving 
with  the  colors  in  the  armies  of  the  Confederate 
States.  And  even  if  we  admit  an  enrollment  in 
the  Confederate  army  of  700,000,  and  reduce  our 
estimates  of  exemptions  and  details  for  special 
work  from  125,000  to  100,000,  there  remain  ap 
parently  for  service  in  the  field  only  about 
600,000  men ;  and  that,  I  suppose,  is  what  General 
Cooper  and  other  Southern  authorities  had  in 
mind. 

We  know  approximately  the  respective  num 
bers  in  the  great  battles  of  the  w^ar,  and  I  submit 
that  these  numbers  are  far  more  consistent  with 
the  maximum  of  600,000  serving  with  the  colors 
than  with  the  maximum  of  1,200,000.*  If,  in 
deed,  the  Confederacy  had  been  able  to  muster  in 
arms  a  million  two  hundred  thousand  men,  it  is 
greatly  to  the  discredit  of  their  able  generals  that 

*  Thus,  to  quote  that  able  and  expert  authority  Gen.  Mar 
cus  J.  Wright:  Battles  around  Richmond  (1862),  Lee, 
80,835;  McClellan,  115,249.  At  Antietam,  Confederates, 


38       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

never  in  any  one  battle  were  they  able  to  confront 
the  enemy  with  more  than  80,000  men. 

But  our  gallant  and  generous  friend  taxes  us,  as 
we  have  seen,  with  casting  discredit  upon  the 
patriotism  of  the  South  by  our  claim  that  we  had 
no  more  than  six  or  seven  hundred  thousand  men 
in  the  field.  Is  he  justified  in  this  opinion?  Let 
us  see  how  the  matter  stands. 

THE  MILITARY  POPULATION  OF  THE  CONFEDERACY 

In  the  month  of  May,  1862,  as  we  have  shown 
above,  at  least  one-fourth  of  the  Southern  terri 
tory  had  been  wrenched  from  the  control  of  the 
Confederate  Government.  In  the  territory  re 
maining  there  was  in  round  numbers  a  population 
of  about  3,800,000  souls.  The  military  popula 
tion  then  should  have  been  760,000. 

To  this  must  be  added,  by  the  extension  of  the 
military  age  down  to  seventeen,  and  up  to  fifty, 
ten  per  cent. —  that  is,  in  all,  six  additional  years, 
76,000. 

[In  this  calculation  I  adopt  Mr.  Adams'  ratio  of 

35,255;  Federals,  87,164.  At  Fredericksburg,  Confederates, 
78,110;  Federals,  110,000.  At  Chancellorsville,  Confeder 
ates,  57,212;  Federals,  131,661.  At  Gettysburg,  Confed 
erates,  64,000;  Federals,  95,000.  At  the  Wilderness,  Con 
federates,  63,981;  Federals,  141,160. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      39 

three-tenths  by  a  supposed  extension  down  to  six 
teen  and  up  to  sixty, — which  gives  in  the 
light  of  the  census  returns  about  one-tenth 
for  the  actual  extension  provided  by  the  law 
of  February  17,  1864,  viz.  down  to  seventeen  and 
up  to  fifty  years.] 

Then  we  must  make  a  further  addition  (again 
adopting  Mr.  Adams'  ratio),  for  youths  reaching 
military  age  in  four  years,  of  twelve  per  cent,  of 
the  military  population,  or  91,200  men.  This, 
with  the  age-extension  addition  —  76,000  — 
makes  a  total  of  167,200,  which,  added  to  the 
original  estimated  population  of  760,000,  makes  a 
grand  total  of  927,200. 

To  this  number  Mr.  Adams  would  add  the  men 
furnished  by  the  Border  States  to  the  Confederate 
army,  viz.  (as  is  alleged),  117,000,  a  grand  avail 
able  total  of  1,044,200. 

But  this  estimate  of  1 17,000  men  furnished  the 
Confederate  army  by  the  Border  States  (Mary 
land,  West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Missouri)  cannot 
be  relied  upon  as  even  approximately  accurate. 
For  example,  it  includes  20,000  men  alleged  to 
have  been  furnished  by  the  State  of  Maryland. 
But  a  careful  examination  of  all  the  Maryland 
organizations,  including  several  companies  in  Vir 
ginia  regiments,  gives  a  total  of  only  4,580  from 
the  State  of  Maryland;  and  this  number  must  be 


40       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

largely  reduced  by  names  duplicated  through  re- 
enlistments.  Applying  the  ratio  adopted  by  the 
War  Department  of  the  United  States,  we  must 
deduct  at  least  920  men,  which  leaves  a  total  of 
only  about  3,500.  Even  this  I  believe  to  be  too 
large.  This  item  alone  reduces  the  estimate  of 
1 17,000  to  about  100,000.  I  will  discuss  this  sub 
ject  at  length  a  little  further  on  in  this  paper,  and 
will  only  say  here  that  there  is  good  reason  to  be 
lieve  100,000  an  excessive  estimate  of  the  number 
actually  furnished  to  the  Confederate  colors  by 
the  Border  States.  Let  us  place  the  figure  at 
75,000  as  a  compromise.  Then  we  should  have: 
Grand  total  of  men  available  in  the 

Southern  States 927,200 

Furnished  by  the  Border  States 75,000 


Total   1,002,200 

NECESSARY  DEDUCTIONS 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  deductions  that  have  to 
be  made  from  this  number. 

i. —  On  the  ground  of  disloyalty  we  have  no 
facts  on  which  to  base  an  estimate,  hence  the  num 
ber  must  be  left  indeterminate,  but  it  was  cer 
tainly  considerable.  The  chief  of  the  Bureau  of 
Education  estimates  the  Appalachian  moun 
taineers  in  the  Southern  States  at  present  at 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      41 

3,000,000.  They  must  therefore  have  been  very 
numerous  in  1861,  and  it  is  conceded  that  most 
of  them  were  loyal  to  the  Union.  Some  Southern 
writers  estimate  80,000  as  the  number  of  Union 
men  who  refused  and  evaded  service  in  the  Con 
federate  army.  If  there  were  only  one  million 
of  these  mountaineers,  they  would  represent 
160,000  men  of  military  age  and  fitness. 

2. —  We  must  also  deduct  a  large  number  for 
men  exempted  for  various  causes,  besides  the  ac 
cepted  exemption  of  twenty  per  cent,  for  physical 
and  mental  disability.  Of  this  we  have  no  com 
plete  statistics,  but  there  are  preserved  in  the 
War  Department  Records  several  documents 
which  enable  us  to  arrive  at  an  approximate  esti 
mate. 

Under  the  head  of  "  Public  Necessity " 
we  find  exemptions  for  railroad  companies,  tele 
graph  companies,  navigation  companies,  cotton 
and  wool  factories,  paper  mills,  iron  manufac 
tories,  foundries,  printing  establishments,  fire 
department,  police  department,  gas-works,  salt 
manufactories,  shoemakers,  tanners,  blacksmiths, 
millers,  millwrights,  ferrymen,  wheelwrights, 
wagon-makers,  express  companies,  equity,  justice 
and  necessity,  indigent  circumstances,  and  miscel 
laneous.  (Id.  p.  873.) 

Thus  General  Preston,  writing  November  23, 


42       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

1864  (W.  R.,  ser.  iv.  vol.  iii,  p.  850),  says: 
'  The  governors  of  the  States  do  not  confine 
their  certificates  of  exemption  to  officers,  as  that 
term  seems  to  be  used  in  the  law,  but  extend  them 
to  all  persons  in  the  service  of  the  State,  or  in  any 
mode  employed  by  State  authority;  and  that 
authority  is  interposed  to  prevent  the  conscript 
officers  from  enrolling  and  assigning  such  per 
sons  to  the  Confederate  service." 

He  gives  a  table  (p.  851)  of  State  officers  ex 
empted  on  certificates  of  the  governors,  and  it 
appears  that  in  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Ten 
nessee  and  Florida  there  were  18,843  sucn  ex~ 
empts. 

The  civil  officers  exempted  in  the  State  of 
Georgia  were  5,478,  and  militia  officers  2,751. 
(See  W.  R.,  iv.,  vol.  iii,  p.  869.)  In  the  same 
State  the  exempts  for  agricultural  and  necessary 
purposes  reached  the  number  of  4,156,  making 
the  total  exemptions  in  that  one  State,  12,385. 
(Id.  iv.  iii.  p.  873.) 

General  Preston  also  reports  the  number  of 
State  officers  exempted  in  North  Carolina,  No 
vember,  1864,  at  14,675  (Idem,  p.  851). 

There  is  a  report  in  the  same  publication,  p. 
96,  which  gives  the  number  of  persons  exempted 
by  occupation,  in  Virginia,  at  13.063.  Thus  in 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      43 

these  three  States  we  have  records  of  exemptions 
amounting  to  40,123.  I  am  unable  to  give  the 
number  of  exemptions  in  the  remaining  eight 
seceded  States ;  but  if  they  were  at  all  in  propor 
tion  to  what  we  find  them  in  Virginia,  Georgia, 
and  North  Carolina,  then  we  must  reckon  the 
exemptions  in  the  whole  Confederacy  as  nearly 
120,000,  since  the  military  population  of  those 
three  States  was  only  a  little  more  than  a  third 
of  the  whole.  These,  be  it  observed,  were  not 
men  detailed  from  the  army,  but  exempted  from 
enrollment. 

3. —  Estimate  of  men  detailed  for  special  work 
in  the  various  branches  of  manufacture  necessary 
for  the  support  of  the  Army  and  people.  Here 
we  have  a  difficult  problem,  but  some  light  is 
thrown  upon  it  by  the  following  report  of  men 
detailed  in  the  State  of  Georgia  (Idem.  iv.  iii.  p. 
874): 

For  agricultural  purposes 957 

For  public  necessities 1,264 

For  government  purposes 629 

For  contractors 141 

For  artisans,  mechanics,  etc 508 


Total 3,499 


44       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

And  in  Virginia  we  find  this  item : 
Men  detailed  in  departments 4,494 

Total  in  these  two  States 7>993 

From  these  figures  of  details  in  these  States  we 
may  conservatively  estimate  the  number  of  men 
detailed  for  various  branches  of  work  in  the 
eleven  States  of  the  Confederacy  as  about  40,- 
ooo.* 

4. — The  seceded  States  exclusive  of  West  Va., 

*  A  consideration  of  the  portentous  difference  between 
the  number  of  men  borne  on  the  regimental  rolls  and 
the  number  actually  available  on  the  battlefield,  suggests 
that  it  may  be  in  large  degree  accounted  for  by  the  number 
of  men  detailed  for  service  in  the  industrial  army. 

Thus  in  the  army  of  Northern  Virginia  just  before 
Fredricksburg,  Nov.  20,  1862 : 

Aggregate  present  and   absent    153,773 

Aggregate    present    for    duty    86,569 

Soon  after  Gettysburg : 

1863:  Present    and    absent    109,915 

Present    for    duty    50,184 

Before  Wilderness  campaign: 

1864 :  Present    and    absent    98,246 

Present    for   duty    62,925 

On  reaching  Petersburg,  July  10,  1864: 

Present   and   absent    I35$O5 

Present    for    duty    68,844 

As  to  exemptions  it  was  customary  to  exempt  farmers 
who  engaged  to  raise  a  certain  amount  of  corn. 

Again  the  practice  was  extensively  pursued  of  granting 
furloughs  for  recruiting  service.  Such  men  continued  to 
be  borne  on  the  rolls  of  their  commands  in  the  field. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       45 

according  to  the  report  of  the  War  Department, 
furnished  the  United  States  armies  with  55,000 
men.  These  must  also  be  deducted  from  the  ag 
gregate  above  stated. 

5. —  Then  we  must  deduct,  as  General  Adams 
acknowledges,  from  the  aggregate  number  of  men 
of  military  age  as  above  (viz.,  927,200,  less  So,- 
ooo  disloyal  and  55,000  in  U.  S.  army,  leaving 
792,200)  twenty  per  cent,  for  those  exempt  on 
account  of  physical  or  mental  disability,  or  158,- 
440.  This  is  the  usual  percentage,  though  in 
the  French  and  British  armies  it  has  been  as  high 
as  thirty-three  per  cent. 

6. — Natural  death  rate  in  two  and  a  half  years 
before  being  enrolled  in  army  11,055  (compare 
Livermore,  p.  22).* 

But  it  will  be  said,  and  justly,  that  although 
after  May,  1862,  at  least  one-fourth  of  the  terri 
tory  of  the  seceded  States  was  not  in  control  of 
the  Confederate  government,  and  therefore  not 
available  as  a  recruiting  ground  for  its  armies, 
nevertheless  many  thousands  of  men  had  enlisted 
in  the  Confederate  armies  previous  to  May,  1862. 
Now,  it  appears  from  General  Cooper's  official 

*  Aggregate  available  military  population  792,000,  of 
which  350,000  in  the  army  January,  1862.  Above  figure  is 
2i  per  cent,  of  remainder,  viz.  442,000, 


46       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

report  that  the  aggregate  number  of  men  and 
officers  enrolled  in  March,  1862,  was  340,250. 
And  so  our  question  is,  How  large  a  proportion 
of  this  number  is  to  be  credited  to  that  part  of  the 
Confederacy  which  by  May,  1862,  was  occupied 
by  the  Federal  armies?  If  we  assume  that  the 
part  of  the  country  thus  occupied  furnished  as 
large  a  proportion  as  the  rest  of  the  Confederacy 
(a  large  assumption),  then,  as  the  population  of 
the  occupied  part  is  estimated  to  have  been  about 
one- fourth  of  the  whole,  we  may  suppose  that  it 
furnished  the  Confederate  army  one-fourth  of 
the  total  340,000;  that  is  to  say,  85,000  men. 
This  is  probably  a  very  large  assumption,  but  it 
may  be  accepted  for  the  purposes  of  our  calcula 
tion. 

To  sum  up  this  part  of  the  argument :  Let  it 
be  granted  that  there  was  an  available  military 
population,  first  and  last,  in  that  part  of  the  Con 
federacy  not  occupied  by  the  Federal  armies,  of 
927,200, 

To  which  may  be  added  volunteers  first 
year  of  war  from  territory  occupied 
by  Federal  forces  after  May,  1862.  .  85,000 

And  also  men  from  Border  States.  .  .  .       75,000 


Aggregate 1,087,200 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      47 

Deductions  from  this  as  follows : 
Natural  death  rate  in  2\  years,  before 

being  enrolled  in  army,  2\% 11,055 

Southern  men  in  U.  S.  army 55,000 

Disloyal,  estimated   80,000 

Exempt  for  physical  and  mental  dis 
ability:  20%  of  the  whole  (after  de 
ducting  the  two  previous  items)  viz. 

158,440 


304495 
Leaving  available   aggregate 782,705* 


Aggregate 1,087,200 

Now  let  us  remember  that  out  of  this  available 
aggregate  (exaggerated  though  I  believe  the 
number  to  be),  there  had  to  be  created  for  the 
service  of  the  Confederate  State  three  armies, — 
an  army  of  soldiers,  an  army  of  civil  servants 
and  an  army  of  industrial  and  agricultural  work 
ers.  If  we  put  the  strength  of  the  fighting  army 
at  620,000,  there  will  remain  for  the  other  two 
armies  162,000  men, —  and  we  have  seen  grounds 

*  Col.  Livermore's  method  of  computation,  if  applied  to 
the  true  available  number  760,000,  with  additions  and  de 
ductions  noted  above,  yields  a  very  similar  result,  about 
790,000.  See  his  book,  p.  23,  but  note  on  p.  21  an  error  of 
calculation,  where  instead  of  265,000  he  should  give  246,872. 


48       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

for  believing  that  there  were  40,000  soldiers  de 
tailed  for  special  work,  and  120,000  exempt  as 
State  officers,  workmen  in  various  occupations, 
agricultural  and  necessary  purposes,  mechanics, 
railway  servants,  etc.  And  it  may  be  asked  with 
confidence  whether  for  all  these  manifold  purposes 
one  hundred  and  sixty-two  thousand  men  can  be 
considered  an  excessive  or  unreasonable  number. 
To  support  the  army  in  the  field,  to  equip  the  civil 
governments  of  eleven  great  States,  and  to  supply 
the  life  blood  of  civilization  in  a  country  of  such 
vast  extent  as  the  Southern  Confederacy,  neces 
sarily  absorbed  the  energies  of  a  great  number  of 
men. 

GENERAL  ADAMS  CLAIMS  SOUTHERN  SUPPORT  FOR 
HIS  CONCLUSION 

But  General  Adams  supports  his  opinion  by  fig 
ures  taken  from  a  recent  work,  "  The  South  in 
the  Building  of  the  Nation."  He  is  thus  able  to 
show  on  the  authority  of  Southern  writers  them 
selves,  an  aggregate  estimate  of  944,000  enlist 
ments  in  the  Confederate  armies  —  to  which  he 
adds  117,000,  as  the  number  claimed  to  have  been 
furnished  the  Confederate  army  from  the  four 
Border  States,  making  a  grand  total  of  1,061,000 
men. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      49 

Now,  even  if  the  numbers  furnished  by  these 
Southern  writers  could  be  accepted  as  approxi 
mately  accurate,  the  result  would  be  quite  differ 
ent  from  what  General  Adams  figures.  For  let  me 
call  attention  to  a  memorandum  issued  by  the  War 
Department,  U.  S.  A.,  May  15,  1905,  in  which  I 
find  this  statement :  "  It  is  estimated  from  the  best 
data  now  obtainable  that  the  re-enlistments  in  the 
army  during  the  Civil  War  numbered  543,393  " 
(p.  4),  which  is  about  twenty  per  cent,  of  the 
whole.  This  number,  the  military  secretary  says, 
must  be  deducted  from  the  total  number  of  enlist 
ments  (2,778,304)  to  get  the  actual  number  of 
men  who  were  enrolled. 

Now,  if  we  apply  this  same  principle  and  pro 
portion  to  the  alleged  enlistment  of  944,000  men 
in  the  Southern  army,  we  should  deduct  for  re- 
enlistment  188,800;  leaving  as  the  actual  number 
of  enlisted  men,  all  told,  with  the  colors  and  not 
with  the  colors,  756,200.  And  further,  though 
we  have  no  accurate  figures  concerning  the  num 
ber  of  men  detailed  for  duties  of  various  kinds, — 
as  clerks,  skilled  mechanics,  gunsmiths,  teamsters, 
cooks,  etc. ;  also  details  in  the  medical,  quarter 
master,  commissary,  and  other  supply  depart 
ments;  and  as  apothecaries,  physicians,  teachers, 
nurses,  agriculturists,  railroad  employees,  etc., — 
we  know  they  numbered  many  thousands,  so  that 


50       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

this  number — 756,200  —  must  be  greatly  re 
duced. 

It  has,  indeed,  been  argued  that  we  cannot 
make  the  deduction  which  the  War  Office  claims 
in  estimating  the  number  of  men  in  the  Union 
armies,  as  stated  above,  for  the  reason  that  the 
twelve-months'  men  in  the  Confederate  armies 
"  were  all  retained  in  service  for  the  war  "  by  the 
Act  of  April  1 6,  1862.  Again,  it  is  insisted  that 
"  substantially  all  of  the  regiments  enrolled  in 
1 86 1  remained  in  service  to  the  end  of  the  war." 
"  It  may,  then,  be  assumed  that  in  effect  the  term 
of  service  of  all  who  entered  the  Confederate 
armies  continued  from  the  time  they  entered  until 
the  end  of  the  War,  May  4,  1865."  (See  Liver- 
more,  "  Numbers  and  Losses,"  p.  52,  53.) 

The  best  way  to  test  the  soundness  of  this  con 
clusion  is  to  look  into  the  actual  record  of  some  of 
the  troops,  to  see  whether  or  not  they  did  re-enlist. 
If  they  did,  then  the  same  opportunity  for  error  in 
counting  them  twice  offered  itself  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Union  enlistments. 

I  cite  then  a  few  examples  of  re-enlistment, 
established  beyond  doubt. 

1.  The  first  Maryland  Infantry,  spring  of  1862. 

2.  Rodes'    Brigade    at    Yorktown,    spring    of 
1862;  the  fifth,  sixth  and  twelfth  Alabama  and 
twelfth  Mississippi  regiments. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       51 

"  They  retained  their  corporate  identity,  but 
not  simply  continued  over.  At  any  rate,  some 
men  in  them  did  not  remain."  (Colonel  J.  W. 
Mallet,  February  16,  1912.) 

3.  Bonhanrs  South  Carolina  regiment  enlisted 
for  six  months.     Re-enlisted  1861.      (Statement 
of  Colonel  Hilary  Herbert.) 

4.  General  Dickinson,  late  Secretary  of  War, 
remembers   regiments   which   were   enlisted    for 
three  months,  and  then  re-enlisted. 

5.  The  Eighth  Alabama,  Colonel  Hilary  Her 
bert.     He  says: 

"  The  men  stepped  out  one  by  one  and  re-en 
listed,  all  but  one  man,  and  he  exercised  the  liberty 
which  all  had,  of  declining  to  re-enlist.  This  was 
in  January,  1864." 

I  quote  also  an  order  of  General  Lee's  on  the 
subject,  February  3,  1864:  "  The  Commanding 
General  announces  with  gratification  the  re-enlist 
ment  of  the  regiments  of  this  army  for  the  war, 
and  the  reiteration  of  the  war  regiments  of  their 
determination  to  continue  in  the  army  until  inde 
pendence  is  achieved."  The  fact  of  re-enlistment 
then  is  absolutely  established.  In  fact  practically 
all  of  the  twelve-months'  volunteers  re-enlisted  in 
1862. 


52       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

THESE    RECENT     SOUTHERN    ESTIMATES     GREATLY 
EXAGGERATED 

But  it  can  be  shown,  I  think  beyond  contradic 
tion,  that  the  numbers  given  by  the  representatives 
of  the  various  States  which  Mr.  Adams  quotes 
from  "  The  South'3  and  from  other  Southern  pub 
lications,  are  enormously  exaggerated. 

We  may  test  the  accuracy  of  this  estimate  of 
theirs  briefly  as  follows :  The  total  military  popu 
lation  of  the  ii  seceded  States  in  1861  was  984,- 
475,  not  taking  into  account  that  about  one-fourth 
of  our  territory  and  population  became  unavail 
able  for  recruiting  purposes  within  one  year  of 
the  breaking  out  of  the  war.  If  we  add  one- 
tenth  for  the  extension  of  the  military  age  by 
Confederate  law  down  to  17  and  up  to  50,  we 
have  98,447;  and,  if  we  add  12  per  cent,  for 
youths  reaching  military  age  in  four  years,  we 
have  118,137,  aggregating  1,201,518.  But  from 
this  we  must  deduct,  as  military  writers  agree,  20 
per  cent,  for  men  exempt  for  physical  and  mental 
disability,  viz.,  240,303,  which  leaves  available 
for  military  duty  in  the  four  years  of  the  war, 
through  the  whole  extent  of  the  Southern  terri 
tory,  961,215.  Now,  if  we  accept  the  figures  of 
the  State  historians,  we  have  935,000  enrolled  in 
the  Confederate  Army;  and  the  reports  of  the 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       53 

United  States  War  Department  state  that,  exclu 
sive  of  West  Virginia,  there  were  55,000  soldiers 
in  the  Union  Army  from  these  same  Southern 
States,  which  makes  an  aggregate  of  990,000  men 
furnished  to  both  armies,  which,  it  will  be  ob 
served,  is  nearly  30,000  more  than  the  entire  mil 
itary  population!  Without  going  any  further, 
this  shows  that  there  has  been  serious  error  in  the 
above  estimates  of  Confederate  enrollment. 

But  there  are  several  other  matters  to  be  consid 
ered.  In  the  first  place,  by  the  spring  of  1862  at 
least  one-fourth  of  the  territory  of  the  seceded 
States  was  under  the  control  of  the  United  States 
Army;  and,  therefore,  that  much  of  the  territory 
was  not  available  as  a  source  of  supply  for  the 
Confederate  Army.  This  cuts  off  nearly  one- 
fourth  of  the  military  strength.  Calculated  on 
this  basis,  the  writers  alluded  to  make  the  aggre 
gate  of  Southern  soldiers  more  than  200,000  in 
excess  of  the  entire  military  population! 

Again,  the  conscript  law,  drastic  as  it  was,  was 
very  imperfectly  executed,  as  those  in  charge  of 
it  at  the  time  amply  testified.  The  opposition  of 
the  Governors  of  Mississippi,  Georgia,  South 
Carolina  and  North  Carolina  to  the  conscript  law 
will  be  remembered.  We  must  also  remember 
that  thousands  of  men  were  employed  on  the 
railroads,  in  the  Government  departments  and  in 


54       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

various  branches  of  manufacture  necessary  for 
the  support  of  the  army  and  the  people,  and  also 
for  agricultural  labor.  It  must  also  be  remem 
bered  that  there  were  thousands  of  men  in  all  the 
Confederate  States  exempted  by  State  authority. 

If  these  things  are  considered,  it  becomes  plain 
that  the  previously  quoted  estimates  of  the  sev 
eral  States  of  the  Confederacy  cannot  possibly 
be  accepted  as  at  all  near  the  real  facts. 

Let  us  now  compare  these  estimates  of  the 
Southern  writers  quoted  with  the  military  popu 
lation  of  some  of  the  States: 

The  military  population  of  Virginia  in 
1 86 1,  exclusive  of  West  Virginia,  is 
estimated  by  Livermore  at 1 16,000 

Add  one-tenth  for  extension  of  military 

age  down  to  seventeen  and  up  to  fifty.  .  1 1,600 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  for  youths  maturing 

to  seventeen  in  four  years 13,920 

Total 141,520 

Deduct  exempts  for  physical  and  mental 

defects,  twenty  per  cent 28,304 


Available  military  population 113,216 

But  the  representative  writer  in  "  The  South  " 
puts  the  number  of  men  furnished  by  Virginia  to 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       55 

the  Southern  armies  at  175,000,  which  is  61,784 
more  than  the  available  military  population! 
Could  there  be  a  more  palpable  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdumf  * 

Besides,  as  I  have  shown,  in  Virginia  and  all 
the  States  there  were  large  numbers  of  men  ex 
empt  as  State  officers.  This  considerably  increases 
the  twenty  per  cent,  which  Colonel  Fox  says  are 
in  all  countries  exempted  from  military  service. 

Take  next  Florida: 

Her  military  population  in  1861  was.  .  . .  15,739 
Add  one-tenth  for  extension  of  military 

age  down  to  seventeen  and  up  to  fifty.  .  1,573 
Add  twelve  per  cent,  for  youths  attaining 

seventeen  years  in  four  years 1,888 


19,200 
Deduct  exempts,  twenty  per  cent 3,840 

Available  military  population 15,360 

But  the  writer  quoted  by  Mr.  Adams  states  that 
Florida    furnished    15,000    to    the    Confederate 

*  The  ten  per  cent,  addition  for  extension  of  military 
age  is  too  high  an  estimate  in  this  and  the  following  tables, 
when  we  remember  that  the  conscript  law  lowering  the 
age  to  seventeen  and  raising  it  to  fifty  did  not  go  into 
operation  until  February  17,  1864,  by  which  time  the  terri 
tory  of  the  Confederacy  was  greatly  contracted. 


56       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

States  army,  and  the  War  Office  records  show 
that  she  furnished  the  Union  army  1,270;  making 
a  total  of  16,270,  which  is  900  more  than  the 
entire  available  military  population ! 

Georgia. — Military  population  in  1861 

was ii  1,005 

Add  one-tenth  for  extension  of  military 

age  down  to  seventeen  and  up  to  fifty.  .  11,100 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  for  youths  attaining 

seventeen  years  in  four  years 13,320 

Total 135.425 

Deduct  twenty  per  cent,  for  exempts .  .    23,085 


Available  military  population 112,340 

But  the  alleged  enrollment  in  the  Confederate 
States  army  is  120,000,  which  is  7,110  more  than 
the  available  military  population,  making  no 
allowance  for  the  failure  of  the  conscript  officers 
to  put  into  the  army  every  man  liable  to  military 
duty,  and  none  for  the  thousands  exempt  from 
service. 

North  Carolina. — Military  population 

was H5'369 

Add  one-tenth  for  the  extension  of  mili 
tary  age  down  to  seventeen  and  up  to 
fifty 11,500 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       57 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  for  youths  maturing 

to  seventeen  years  in  four  years 13,800 

Total 140,669 

Deduct  twenty  per  cent,  for  exempts.  ...   28,133 

Leaving  available 1 12,536 

Alleged  Confederate  enrollment  129,000;  fur 
nished  to  the  Union  army,  3,156;  total,  132,156; 
which  is  19,620  more  than  the  available  military 
population,  although  in  one-fourth  of  the  State 
the  conscript  law  could  not  be  executed,  and  al 
though  many  thousands  were  exempted  from 
service  by  State  law. 

South  Carolina. — Military  population.  .  .    55,046 

Add  one-tenth  as  above 5>5°4 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  as  above 6,605 


67,155 
Deduct  twenty  per  cent 13,231 


Leaving  available 53,924 

The  alleged  Confederate  enrollment  was 
75,000,  which  is  more  than  21,000  in  excess  of  the 
total  number  of  men  available  for  service,  though 
here  also  there  were  thousands  of  State  ex 
emptions. 


58       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

Mississippi. — Military  population 7°>295 

Add  one-tenth  for  extension  of  military 

age  7,029 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  for  youths  maturing 

to  military  age  in  four  years 8,435 

Total 85,759 

Deduct  twenty  per  cent,  for  exempts. .  .      17,151 

Leaving  available 68,608 

The  alleged  Confederate  enrollment  was 
70,000,  and  furnished  to  the  United  States  army 
515,  which  is  nearly  2,000  more  than  the  total 
military  population,  taking  no  account  of  the 
large  number  of  exempts  and  of  the  failure  to  ex 
ecute  the  conscript  act. 

Alabama. — Military  population  was 99,667 

Add  one-tenth  for  the  extension  of  mili 
tary  age  down  to  seventeen  and  up  to 

fifty    1 1,500 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  for  youths  maturing 

to  seventeen  years  in  four  years.  .....    11,796 


Total 12 1,959 

Deduct  twenty  per  cent,  for  exempts.  .   24,391 

Leaving  available 97>568 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       59 

The  alleged  Confederate  enrollment  was 
90,000,  and  furnished  to  the  Union  army,  2,576, 
making  a  total  of  92,576;  which  is  within  5,000 
of  the  total  available,  taking  no  account  of  the 
large  number  exempted  for  State  officers  and 
other  causes,  and  taking  no  account,  either,  of  the 
number  of  men  who  could  not  be  reached  by  the 
conscript  officers. 

Tennessee. — Military  population X59>353 

Add  one-tenth  as  before J5>935 

Add  twelve  per  cent,  as  before 19,222 


Total 194,510 

Deduct  twenty  per  cent 38,902 


Leaving  available 155,608 

The  alleged  Confederate  enrollment  was 
115,000,  and  the  State  furnished  the  Union  army 
31,092,  a  total  of  146,092,  which  is  within  9,000 
of  the  total  available  military  population,  without 
taking  account  of  the  men  not  reached  by  the 
conscript  officers,  and,  further,  taking  no  account 
of  the  fact  that  so  large  a  part  of  the  State  was 
in  occupation  of  the  Federal  armies. 

As  to  Texas,  Arkansas  and  Louisiana,  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  they  were  in  that  Trans-Mis 
sissippi  Department  of  which  the  Confederate 


60       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

Government  lost  control  in  July,  1863.  Hence,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  even  those  inflated  estimates 
of  the  number  of  men  furnished  the  Confederate 
army  fall  far  short  of  the  estimated  military  pop 
ulation.  In  Arkansas,  however,  the  estimate 
comes  within  5,000  of  the  total  available, — 58,289 
out  of  63,665. 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  just  stated  we  must 
conclude  that  the  Southern  writers  quoted  by 
General  Adams  have,  in  their  zeal  for  the  honor 
and  glory  of  their  several  States,  greatly  over 
estimated  the  number  of  men  contributed  by  the 
same  to  the  Confederate  armies.  This  would  be 
more  probable  a  priori,  than  that  the  leading  men 
in  the  Confederate  army  and  Government  who 
were  at  the  sources  of  information,  and  who 
ought  to  have  been  well  informed,  should  have 
so  enormously  underestimated  the  strength  of  the 
armies  of  the  South;  but  the  tests  to  which  we 
have  now  submitted  the  figures  given  by  these 
State  historians  demonstrate  their  error  beyond 
the  possibility  of  doubt.  They  must  be  cut  down 
by  several  hundred  thousand.  A  large  element  of 
this  error  is  to  be  found,  as  I  have  suggested,  in 
the  failure  to  observe  the  great  number  of  re- 
enlistments  that  undoubtedly  took  place, 
especially  in  1862,  when  the  terms  of  service  of 
nearly  all  the  Confederate  regiments  expired. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY       61 

This  duplication,  in  the  opinion  of  the  military 
Secretary  of  the  United  States,  reduces  the  total 
by  twenty  per  cent. 

As  a  sample  of  how  errors  creep  into  reports 
of  numbers,  it  is  stated  (W.  R.,  ser.  iv.,  vol.  iii,  p. 
96)  as  to  a  certain  number  of  conscripts,  "  We 
find  some  men  were  reported  three  times."  And 
again  (Id.  p.  99)  that  the  "Adjutant-General's 
report  contains  an  error  in  which  he  has  accounted 
for  14,000  men  twice." 

Let  it  be  observed,  finally,  that  when  we  have 
reached  a  reasonably  probable  conclusion  of  the 
men  enlisted  in  the  Confederate  armies  during  the 
four  years  of  war,  we  must  then  proceed  to  ascer 
tain,  if  we  can,  the  probable  number  of  these  en 
listed  men  who  were  detailed  for  various  duties 
and  occupations  ancillary  to  the  support  of  the 
government  and  the  army.  And  only  when  this 
number  has  been  deducted  from  the  total  enlist 
ments  will  we  have  ascertained  the  probable  num 
ber  of  men  actually  serving  with  the  colors  and 
making  up  the  fighting  force  of  the  Confederacy. 

THE    CONTRIBUTION    OF    THE    BORDER    STATES    TO 
THE  ARMIES   OF   THE   CONFEDERACY 

It  is  a  difficult  problem  to  determine  with  any 
degree  of  probability  how  many  men  were  con- 


62       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

tributed  to  the  armies  of  the  Confederacy  by  the 
Border  States,  The  factors  by  which  it  might 
be  solved  do  not  seem  to  be  within  reach.  At 
least,  I  have  not  been  able  to  possess  myself  of 
them.  There  lies  before  me  a  printed  "  List  of 
Regiments  and  Battalions  in  the  Confederate 
States'  Army,  1861-1865."  According  to  this 
there  were  furnished  by  Missouri  21  battalions 
and  79  regiments;  by  Kentucky  16  battalions  and 
26  regiments;  by  Maryland  2  infantry  regi 
ments  and  4  battalions,  4  batteries ;  also  the  Mary 
land  Line,  of  various  arms.  But,  upon  inspec 
tion,  it  appears  that  this  "  Maryland  Line  "  was 
formed  of  those  regiments  and  battalions  and  bat 
teries  previously  enumerated. 

General  Charles  Francis  Adams,  following 
Colonel  Livermore,  tells  us  there  were  238  full 
regiments  from  the  Border  States  in  the  Confed 
erate  army,  besides  132  lesser  organizations.  On 
the  other  hand,  Colonel  Fox,  in  his  well-known 
work,  "  Regimental  Losses  in  the  Civil  War," 
credits  the  Border  States  with  having  sent  into 
the  Confederate  army  only  21  regiments  and  4 
battalions  of  infantry;  9  regiments  and  5  bat 
talions  of  cavalry,  and  n  batteries  of  light 
artillery.  As  to  numbers,  he  estimates  them  at 
"over  19,000"  (p.  552). 

These  estimates  and  numbers  of  Colonel  Fox 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      63 

look  strange  beside  the  estimate  of  117,000  and 
125,000,  as  given  by  some  Southern  writers. 
We  have  already  stated  that  in  "  The  South  in 
the  Building  of  the  Nation,"  Maryland  is  cred 
ited  with  having  furnished  20,000  men  to  the 
Confederate  army.  How  wide  of  the  mark  this 
statement  is,  may  be  seen  by  inspecting  the  fol 
lowing  total  of  organizations  of  Maryland  men 
in  the  Confederacy: 

INFANTRY 

First  Maryland  Infantry,  number  of  men.  .  782 

Second  Maryland  Infantry 627 

Company  B,  Twenty-first  Virginia,  Colonel 

L.  Clarke 109 

One  company,  Thirteenth  Virginia  Lanier 

Guards,  estimated 75 

One  company,  Sixty-first  and  Sixty-second 

Virginia,  estimated 65 

Total   Infantry 1,658 

CAVALRY 

First  Maryland,  Colonel  Ridgeley  Brown .  .       74 

Company  K,  First  Virginia;  transferred  in 
August,  1864,  to  First  Maryland 197 

Lieutenant  Harry  Gilmour  Battalion,  esti 
mated  250 

Colonel  Sturgis  Davis  Battalion,  estimated.     100 


64       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

One  Maryland  Company  in  Seventh  Vir 
ginia,  estimated 75 

One  Maryland  Company  in  Thirty-fifth  Vir 
ginia,  Colonel  Elijah  White 103 

One  Maryland  Company  in  Forty-third  Vir 
ginia,  Colonel  Mosby,  estimated 75 

Total  cavalry 674 

ARTILLERY 

Colonel  Snowden  Andrews 204 

Second  Maryland,  Captain  Griffin 197 

Third  Maryland,   Colonel  Rowan,  Captain 

Ritter 350 

In  Western  Army,  Fourth  Maryland, 
Chesapeake,  Captain  Brown,  Captain 

Chew 137 

Captain  Brethed,  Horse  Artillery  (a  Mary 
land  battalion,  though  mustered  into  serv 
ice  as  Virginian) 75 

Baltimore  Heavy  Artillery,  estimated 100 

Marylanders  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
estimated  225 


Total  artillery 1,288 


Grand   total 4,580 

These  figures  are  compiled  from  the  muster 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      65 

rolls,  with  the  exception  of  those  "  estimated." 
It  is  to  be  observed  that  a  very  large  proportion 
of  the  men  in  the  Second  Maryland  Infantry 
were  those  who  had  previously  served  in  the  First 
Maryland  Infantry;  so  that  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  duplication  there  by  reenlistment.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  were  many  individual  Mary- 
landers  in  various  regiments  accredited  to  other 
States.  We  have  also  the  names  of  137  Mary- 
landers  who  were  officers  in  various  other  com 
mands. 

The  estimate  above  alluded  to,  of  20,000 
Marylanders  in  the  Confederate  service,  rests  ap 
parently  upon  no  better  basis  than  an  oral  state 
ment  of  General  Cooper  to  General  Trimble,  in 
which  he  said  he  believed  that  the  muster  rolls 
would  show  that  about  20,000  men  in  the  Con 
federate  army  had  given  the  State  of  Maryland 
as  the  place  of  their  nativity.  How  many  were 
citizens  of  Maryland  when  they  enlisted  does  not 
appear.  Obviously  many  natives  of  Maryland 
were  doubtless  in  1861  citizens  of  other  States, 
and  could  not  therefore  be  reckoned  among  the 
soldiers  furnished  by  Maryland  to  the  Confed 
erate  armies. 

As  to  the  estimates  furnished  by  writers  in 
"  The  South "  concerning  the  number  of  men 
furnished  the  Confederacy  from  the  Border 


66       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

States,  viz.,  Kentucky,  30,000;  Missouri,  60,000; 
West  Virginia,  7,000 ;  the  same  unintentional  ex 
aggeration  doubtless  exists  here  as  I  have  shown 
in  regard  to  the  numbers  alleged  to  have  been 
furnished  by  the  seceded  States.  Unfortunately 
it  is  not  possible  to  be  definite  in  stating  the  num 
bers  furnished  by  the  Border  States.  When  we 
observe  the  discrepancy  between  Colonel  Fox's 
19,000,  President  Tyler's  117,000,  and  Colonel 
Livermore's  143,000,  it  becomes  clear  that  the 
whole  subject  is  involved  in  uncertainty.  I  in 
cline  to  the  opinion  that  50,000  is  nearer  the 
actual  numbers  in  the  Southern  army  from  these 
Border  States  than  100,000;  but  for  the  sake  of 
argument  I  leave  the  number  75,000,  as  stated 
above.* 

Before  concluding  this  branch  of  the 
subject  I  would  call  attention  to  the  fol 
lowing  remark  made  by  Mr.  Charles  Francis 
Adams  in  his  "  Military  Studies,"  p.  282.  He 
says  "  that  the  States  named  [meaning  Kentucky, 
Maryland,  Missouri,  West  Virginia]  sympathiz- 

*  WAR   DEPARTMENT, 

WASHINGTON,  May  18,  1912. 
DEAR  DR.  McKiM, 

I    think    your    estimate    of    50,000    as    representing    the 
total   number  of  troops    furnished   by  the   Border   States 
is  about  correct.     It  can  never  be  definitely  ascertained. 
Very  truly  yours, 

MARCUS  J.  WRIGHT. 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      67 

ing,  as  at  the  time  the  Southern  authorities 
claimed,  most  deeply  with  the  Confederacy  should 
have  furnished  over  316,000  recruits  to  the  Fed 
eral  army,  and  only  117,000  to  that  of  the  Con 
federacy  is,  to  say  the  least,  deserving  of  re 
mark, — -  it  calls  for  explanation."  Again  he 
says :  "It  would  be  not  unnatural  to  assume  that 
these  States  furnished  an  equal  number  of  re 
cruits  to  the  Confederacy."  (Id.  p.  238.) 

This  statement  is  sufficiently  amazing.  On  the 
contrary,  would  it  not  be  most  unnatural  to  as 
sume  -that  these  four  States,  occupied  and  con 
trolled  from  end  to  end  by  the  Federal  armies, 
should  have  furnished  as  many  men  to  the  Con 
federate  army  as  to  the  Federal  army,  notwith 
standing  the  enormous  difficulties  of  passing 
through  the  lines?  Although  there  was  much 
sentiment  favorable  to  the  Confederacy  in  these 
four  States,  I  fear  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that 
the  preponderance  of  sentiment  was  in  favor  of 
the  Union;  and  he  must  be  blind  who  does  not 
recognize  the  fact  that  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  a  young  man  desiring  to  enlist  in  the  Southern 
army,  while  his  State  was  occupied  by  the  Fed 
eral  forces,  were  enormously  great. 

CONCLUSION 
There  are  two  remarks  of  General  Adams   to 


68       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

which,  before  closing,  I  should  like  to  call  atten 
tion.  He  states  that  the  foreigners  in  the  Union 
army  were  more  than  counterbalanced  by  our 
drastic  conscription  ("  Military  Studies,"  p.  246). 
Now  it  appears  from  official  reports  that  there 
were  494,000  foreigners  in  the  Union  army,  so 
that  he  must  have  supposed  that  the  conscription 
law  produced  about  500,000  soldiers.  It  actually 
produced,  east  of  the  Mississippi,  81,992  men  from 
February,  1862,  when  the  first  law  was  passed,  to 
February,  1865.  We  cannot  suppose  that  the  ad 
ditions  from  the  States  west  of  the  Mississippi  — 
Texas,  Louisiana,  and  Arkansas  —  could  have 
been  even  one-fourth  as  numerous.  The  military 
population  was  about  one-third  as  large,  but  by 
1863  that  territory  was  overrun  by  the  Federal 
armies.  But  if  we  put  these  at  20,000,  we  have 
only  101,992,  instead  of  the  half  million  which 
Mr.  Adams  supposes.  And  if  we  should  add  the 
76,000  men  which  the  conscription  officers,  mag 
nifying  their  diligence,  guessed  had  been  driven 
into  the  army  by  enlistment  to  avoid  conscription 
we  would  then  have  only  177,993. 

Again,  General  Adams  says : 

"  As  respects  mere  numbers,  it  is  capable  of 
demonstration  that  at  the  close  of  the  struggle  the 
preponderance  was  on  the  side  of  the  Confed- 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      69 

eracy,  and  distinctly  so.  The  Union  at  that  time 
had,  it  is  said,  a  million  men  on  its  muster  rolls. 
.  .  .  it  might  possibly  have  been  able  to  put 
500,000  men  into  the  fighting  line.  On  the  other 
side  .  .  .  the  fighting  strength  of  the  Con 
federacy  cannot  have  been  less  than  two-thirds 
its  normal  strength.  The  South  should  have 
been  able  to  muster,  on  paper,  900,000  men." 
(Idem,  pp.  241-2.) 

Compare  this  statement  of  what  the  South 
should  have  been  able  to  muster  with  the  consoli 
dated  abstract  of  the  latest  returns  of  the  Con 
federate  army  showing  what  she  was  able  to 
muster.  This  is  the  record  : 

Officers  and  men  in  all  the  Confederate  armies, 
February,  1865,  aggregate  for  duty,  160,000;  ag 
gregate  present  and  absent,  358,000  (W.  R.,  iv. 
iii.  p.  1182). 

General  Marcus  Wright,  an  expert  authority, 
estimates  the  strength  of  the  Confederate  army 
at  the  close  of  the  war  thus : 

Present    I57>6l3 

Absent   1 17,387 


Total   275,000 

And  of  the  Union  army  thus: 


70       THE  NUMERICAL  STRENGTH 

Present    797^7 

Absent   202,700 


Total  1,000,507 

If  General  Adams  is  right,  one  cannot  but  ask, 
where  were  the  other  542,000  men,  over  and 
above  the  358,000  shown  by  the  official  report  al 
luded  to  to  have  been  on  the  rolls  ?  The  90,000 
men  in  Northern  prisons  will  not  help  the  situa 
tion,  for  they  were  not  exactly  available  as  part  of 
the  "  fighting  strength  of  the  Confederacy."  Com 
pare  also  the  fact  that  there  were  mustered  out  of 
the  Union  army  at  the  end  of  the  war  1,034,000 
men ;  and  there  were,  in  all  the  Confederacy,  sur 
rendered  Confederate  soldiers  to  the  number  of 
174,000  only,  and  this  included  all  who  were  pa 
roled,  whether  in  hospital,  or  at  their  homes,  as 
well  as  those  in  arms. 

In  conclusion  I  am  reminded  of  the  words  of 
General  Lee  in  a  letter  to  General  Jubal  A.  Early, 
shortly  after  the  war,  "Ix  WILL  BE  DIFFICULT  TO 

GET     THE      WORLD      TO      UNDERSTAND     THE      ODDS 
AGAINST    WHICH    WE   FOUGHT/' 

Still  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  statements 
of  the  adjutant-general  of  the  Confederate  armies 
in  his  official  reports,  and  the  testimony  of  Gen- 


OF  THE  CONFEDERATE  ARMY      71 

eral  Lee  himself  in  regard  to  the  numbers  in  his 
army,  will  ultimately  be  considered  by  the  world 
more  reliable  than  the  a  priori  estimates  of  even 
so  careful  and  honest  an  investigator  as  Colonel 
Livermore. 

When  immediately  after  the  surrender  at  Ap- 
pomattox  General  Meade  asked  General  Lee  how 
many  men  he  had  in  his  army,  the  latter  replied 
that  he  had  on  his  entire  front,  from  Richmond  to 
Petersburg,  not  more  than  29,000  muskets. 
"  Then,"  said  General  Meade,  "  we  had  five  to 
your  one."  On  the  whole  I  think  we  may  still 
claim  for  the  armies  of  the  Southern  Confed 
eracy  the  encomium  penned  by  Virgil  nearly  two 
thousand  years  ago : 

"  Exigui  numero,   sed  bello  vivida  virtus." 


POSTWORD 

The  arguments  adduced  in  the  preceding  pages 
are  believed  by  the  writer  to  be  valid  and  suf 
ficient  to  refute  the  conclusion  reached  by  Colonel 
Livermore,  the  Hon.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  and 
others,  that  there  was  in  the  Confederacy  a 
"minimum  of  1,160,000  effectives,  to  which  we 
must  add  117,000  men  from  the  Border  States, 
giving  a  total  Confederate  strength  of  1,277,000." 
I  have  not  attempted  to  give  definite  figures  as  to 
the  actual  enrollment  in  the  Southern  armies. 
My  argument  is  of  necessity  largely  based  on  the 
probabilities  of  the  situation, —  it  does  not  pro 
fess  to  be  demonstrative,  or  final.  But  "  proba 
bility  is  the  guide  of  life  " ;  and  I  believe  I  have 
blazed  a  path  by  which  future  students  of  the  sub 
ject,  having  before  them  the  muster  rolls  of  the 
Confederate  army  will  be  able  to  reach  more  defi 
nite  conclusions  in  this  important  subject  —  con 
clusions,  however,  not  seriously  at  variance  with 
those  stated  in  these  pages.* 

*  I  have  not  in  this  Monograph  taken  account  of  an 
argument  sometimes  put  forward,  drawn  from  the  alleged 
fact  that  the  census  of  1890  showed  that  there  were  then 
living  432,020  Confederate  and  980,724  United  States  sol 
diers  (or  including  sailors  and  marines  1,034,073).  But 
the  Report  on  Population,  1890,  Part  II,  p.  clxxii,  states 
that  the  figures  first  quoted  are  approximate  only,  and 
"have  not  been  subjected  to  careful  revision  and  compari 
son."  No  positive  conclusion,  therefore,  can  be  drawn 
from  them.  Their  unreliability  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
at  that  very  time  the  War  Department  estimated  that  there 
were  then  living  1,341,332  Federal  soldiers. 


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